Four Cheese Barquettes

Ahh...the barquette... A wonderful way to move tasty bits of food from a plate to your mouth. And since it is also a "tiny food", and as my wife can attest I love tiny food; I had to give it a whirl. The cool thing is that if you can make a pie dough, you can make a barquette.

These tasty morsels are great for an appetizer or finger food for a cocktail party. One nice thing is that you can make the shells ahead of time and save them for a few days before your hip get together. Barquettes can be savory or sweet, but as this was my first try at making them I decided to go with the four cheese savoy barquette. I mean who doesn't like cheese? Well aside from my lactose intolerant friends out there.

This project can be thought of as three separate recipes, the first two of which are great to learn as they can be used in many different applications. For instance the shells, called Pate Brisee, use pie making skills as you are basically making small pie shells. For the end result you also get to make a Bechamel sauce, one of the mother sauces which, once you learn how to make it, it will open up the world of sauce making for you. Yey mother sauces!

Music: Carla Bruni's Queleu'un M'a Dit

Ingredients Pate Brisee

2 1/2 Cups AP Flour
3/4 cup butter (diced and chilled in freezer for 20 minutes)
1 egg, lightly beaten
salt

Process Pate Brisee
1. Sift flour and salt together into a food processor or bowl. Add the chilled butter. If using food processor , process till flour/butter combination looks like bread crumbs. If not using a food processor, blend the butter into the flour/salt mixture using a pastry blender.

2. Once the butter is blended into the flour/salt mixture place mixture on your counter and make a well in the center so your mixture looks like a volcano. Add the beaten egg and 2 tsp of cold water into the well. With two fingers, slowly incorporate the wet into the dry turning your ingredients into a wet dough. Knead this dough lightly. Split dough in half and form each half into a flat round about 4 inches in diameter. Cover these rounds with plastic wrap and place int eh refrigerator for around an hour. This resting time allows for the dough to adsorb the moisture in the dough more fully and all for it to relax, making it easier to roll out later.

3. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. After an hour, roll out the dough to about 1/8th inch and line your tartlette or Barquette molds with the dough. fill the pastry lined molds with beans or pie weights and bake in over for ~15 minutes. When slightly browned take out of the over and remove beans from the shell and the shell from the mold. Let the shells cool before adding filling. Shells will last 2-3 days in the refrigerator or up to a month inf the freezer. if you want to make these ahead of time.

Ingredients for Bechamel

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup AP flour
2 1/2 cups milk
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
Salt and pepper

Process for Bechamel
1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and let it cook for a minute or so. Pour in all the milk, whisking constantly until mixture starts to boil. Season with salt and lower the heat to a simmer and cover. Cook for 20 minutes stiring occasionally. Remove from heat and season with more salt if needed. Add pepper and nutmeg if using. The bachamel should not taste floury at this point. If it is too think, add more milk and butter and return to heat till it reaches the thickness you like.

Ingrediants for Four Cheese Barquetes
1 1/2 cups ditalini pasta
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup Fontina cheese, grated
1/2 cup Emmenthal cheese, grated
1/2 cup Caciotta cheese, grated (or MonterreyJack)
1/2 cup Mozzarella cheese, grated
35-50 Pate Brisee Barquettes (pretty much what is made from the above recipe)
1 Quantity Bechamel Sauce
Grape tomatoes, thinly sliced
Salt

Process for Four Cheese Barquetes

Cook the pasts in salted boiling water for 8-12 minutes, unitil al dente. Drain and stir in all the cheeses and the butter. Place cheese pasta mixture into pastry shells and add 1-2 tablespoons bechamel sauce to each. Top with one or two thin slices of grape tomato. Place on a cookie sheet an bake in a 400degree preheated over till golden and bubbling.



With this weeks appetizer I listened to Carla Bruni's album entitled Quelqu'un M'a Dit. You may know her as the first lady of France but I really dig her first album. Most tracks simply her vocals with an acoustic guitar accompaniment. When I listen to this album I am transported to a 1960's era Paris France cafe. I sip some coffee, wear my black turtleneck, and take on a partially pretentious but very romantic air. As such, I think it goes well with the Barquettes. Sure these are basically mac and cheese on a cracker, but hell doesn't Four Cheese Barquettes with a Bachemel sauce sound so much cooler? Anyway, a couple of great cuts from the album are the title track, Raphael, and L'Amour. Just don't forget your turtleneck while you are listening to them.